Iraqi Federal court delays hearing on Kurdistan’s illegal oil exports again
Iraq’s top federal court. Photo: twitter/iraqfsc.iq
BAGHDAD,— The Federal Supreme Court decided on Thursday to postpone a hearing on an appeal filed by the federal Ministry of Oil about the illegality of the Kurdistan Region’s independent extraction and exportation of crude oil.
Spokesperson for the court Ayak Samuk said that the decision had been made during a meeting of the full court and that the appeal would now be heard on May 7.
“The appeal filed by the deputy oil minister was missing information, specifically analyses of the impact of Article 10 of the federal budget law and the status of the agreement between Baghdad and Erbil, under which the Region can export 300,000 oil barrels per day from its oil fields and 250,000 oil barrels per day from oil fields in Kirkuk,” Samuk said.
The court also received an unsigned filing from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Natural Resources Ministry and heard requests from lawmakers for additional time to submit their own filings.
The federal Ministry of Finance presented a signed filing from Minister Fuad Hussein asking for a delay in the case until the Council of Representatives had passed new legislation about the oil and gas industry.
In October 2017, Baghdad’s National Security Council announced that a probe has been launched into Kurdistan’s lucrative oil revenues and officials in the region who might have illegally monopolised the market.
“The corrupt will be exposed and the funds recovered,” said a statement from the council in October 2017, headed by ex-Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
Kurdistan considered as the most corrupted part of Iraq. According to Kurdish lawmakers and leaked documents billions of dollars are missing from Iraqi Kurdistan’s oil revenues. A Kurdish lawmaker said in March 2017 the amount of $1.266 billion from oil exports and Iraqi Kurdistan’s revenue has gone missing over the last three months.
In January 2019 a a top Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) official Mala Bakhtiar said that some 30,000 barrels per day of oil are being looted just from Kirkuk and smuggled into Sulaimani in Iraqi Kurdistan Region.
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